Back in 2000 I was in High School, I was adventurous, and I was stupid. Go figure. My friends and I heard about this supposed haunted spot nearby so we decided to check it out. There is this retirement home nearby where I grew up that supposedly was a mental hospital years ago (weren't they all?) and right next to it is woods and our county fairgrounds. Directly next to the entrance to this retirement home is a dirt service road that goes up maybe a 100 yards. At the end of this road, the home is a 100 ft to your left and a second service road goes to the right. If you travel 2 mi. down this windey road, you come to a dead end where the only escape from the woods is the way you came. 50 ft into the wilderness you find 3 random grave stones, one of which says "Rest in Peace Unknown Skeletal Remains". The legend I heard tells the tale of escaped mental patients who get lost in the woods and end up dieing of dehydration. I do not a know any further story behind these remains, though I don't think they are resting comfortably.

The first time we went to investigate, we were told by my friend that he had been there the week prior and had witnessed an apparition "come up out of the ground and then disappear". According to my other friend that was there with him, he turned white as a ghost and ran back to their car and left. I went there with 2 other friends (my friend that saw the apparition refused to return and urged us not to go). It didn't take us long to find the graves using flashlights and it didn't take us long to start hearing footsteps other then our own coming from the woods. At first I assumed they were of animal origin but soon I was convinced they were not. I was also overcome by the feeling of being watched and of just general discomfort. Soon we saw black figures in the distant, darting between the trees. That was enough for me. We left soon after. Was it my imagination despite my friends having the same experiences? Were the footsteps those of only animals? Were the shadow people simply tricks of the mind? I don't think so. I believe there is definitely something paranormal going on there.

7 years later my wife talked me into taking her to this location. I had been telling her all my paranormal experiences and when I related the story about the "unknown remains" she insisted on seeing it for herself. We went during the day to be able to find the graves easier because it really is like a needle in a haystack. I hadn't been there in years so I was worried we wouldn't be able to find the spot but to our delight we found it no time. We didn't stay long, since I had been there last they tried to block off the second service road to vechiles and put up a no trespassing sign, so we got in and out as quick as possible. Nothing paranormal happened other then that strange feeling of being watched and I didn't really expect much since it was the middle of the day. The strangest thing was something non paranormal... someone had put an American flag next to one of the graves. I thought that was strange. Who would go to the trouble of doing that for some unknown remains in the middle of no where. The mystery continues.

Click to view attachment

I see you're from Ohio. In Columbus, on west Broad Street, I think where TICO is now, used to be the State Insane Asylum. It's long gone, but the cemetery is still there, and there are hundreds of graves marked only with numbers. There are even a few marked "Specimen".

that's crazy!

There are even a few marked "Specimen".
[/quote]

that's not very nice is it?

Very interesting post though - it is sad how a whole persons life can just go, puff - and no one even seems to care.

Our local church has childrens' graves on the outskirts, the other side of the wall - I pressume it's unconsecreted and that's why they're there. It's not the case now though, children can be in the main church yard. But there are tiny head stones and then, some without a headstone at all, just a tiny space, it's tragic really.

We went through our city's oldest cemetary on Sunday, took some photos too - there were catacombs, elaborate stones, it was a very gothic and beautiful church yard. But what I found most interesting was the paupers' graves. They were huges slabs with just names and dates on, hundreds of names. Very sad, but at least they had some kind of a marker, that seemed rare to me.

OMG That is disgusting. Poor souls..JN

I was looking at it and by the flag, wrapped around it at a glance looked like a claw gave me the shivers lol

... Beyond the imagination, And now we enter The Twilight*FIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ*...

Unknown graves is sad, but I guess we all will be unknowns someday. Unknown

omgosh I see that now that you mention it!

"Specimen" likely refers to a body part, a hand or a foot, an arm or a leg, perhaps a torso, used for dissection and anatomy training. Or perhaps simply the remains from an amputation. Sometimes such items are from several people and buried together. This prevents a full grave plot being used for a single arm or foot, especially where the cemetery has severe size limitations.

Though today they are much more likely to be cremated.

By the way, many of those bodies buried as "unknown" could today be identified through DNA, if the proper experts could be made interested.

This was especially odd to me though b/c it wasn't a grave filled with unknown remains in a cemetary... it's in the middle of no where. Plus there is defiently something freaky about being there. I don't like going there.

Ooh, I'm from Dayton, but work for a PI group based out of Columbus. I'm going to have to check it out.
Although, top on my list right now, over here in Dayton, they have recently found a small "village" buried underground. Not even that old. There is an retirment home, that was built on top of an old mental institution, basically turning the old MI into the basment of the hospital(sounds like a script for a cheesy horror movie right??) . They recently started some new construction in other locations on the hospital grounds, and what did they find?? Several other building dating back to around the time the MI was active, one of the buildings was an entire bowling alley!! And it seems that the old MI has tunnels running from it all throuought the city. I've talked to an elderly gentlemen who used to work on a construction crew for the city, and he was telling me about when he was young, and first started working for the city, he was on the crew that collapsed and filled in one of these tunnel that ran underground to another small city about 5 miles south of Dayton!! He personally had driven a small machine the entire lenght of the tunnel before they collapsed it!
I'm not exactly sure how old the MI is, but it is old enough to have metal shackles and chains bolted to the wall for restaint systems, and current hospital employees are verifying that they are still there, and the building itself is still structurally well intact!!
I am working on getting my PI team in there ASAP to check this place out!!!

You're PI team is going so I'm assuming there have been reports of paranormal activity?

Lots, from what I understand. Several past employees after going down there only once, because whatever happened there scared the hell out of them. And most current employees refuse to go down there, because they all claim it is haunted, and not jsut from getting "spooked", but from actual experiences they had.

It makes me wonder if hauntings happen more often on ground that is not hallowed(holy by means of religious rites, blessed by a religious figure in the name of Jesus). I would imagine private cemeteries or random graves on private property are not hallowed as often as traditional cemeteries.

That sounds like a crazy place! So from the basement of the retirment home there is access to all this? Any links to more info/pics?

No, pics or anything. None if this is info from the internet. All of this if from people I have talked to in the area. First or second hand experiences. Once I get a little more info, and talk to someone in charge of the property, I am then going to do alot of research online and try to find the entire history of the place.

sounds like you may have found part of the old cemetery for the hospital.Very creepy indeed.667-Neighbor Of,keep us posted on your findings.Timmah,have to agree,it's realy strange that someone would put an american flag out in the woods by the grave of someone unknown. If this was around Gettysburg or any of the Civil War battlefields,it would make sense,or at some old family plot,but not in the place you described.

Yeah, maybe. As I understand it, it wasn't really the kind of hospital where those kinds of operations would have taken place, but I couldn't say for sure. It's a little weird because you don't really know what has been interred there, since "Specimen" doesn't tell us much. Just a date, or even a blank stone would have been more dignified. Not that I'm one to get hung up on such things, since I'm being torched myself. It's just a weird relic from a weird place.

could be that someone knows whose burried in that grave. someone could have been missing and family thinks they are burried there. cost to much to have them dug up and tested or could be that whoever found the body was really bothered and still goes to the grave

I Agree, thats the sad part..

Specimen is the official term that hospitals etc. use for limbs that had to be removed and then are disposed of. The odd thing is, you don't bury those sort of specimens and you don't give them gravestones. I would imagine that a specimen that needed to have a headstone would be a person who was killed during unecessary surgery. I know that labotomy work was often done in mental hospitals at one time. A labotomy was thought to cure manic behavior, and for those of you who don't know, a labotomy is when they would take an ice pick and put it up your nose. They would put it in deep into your nose and break through to the brain and wiggle it back and forth to damage the frontal lobe. This procedure sometimes worked and the patient was fine, but most of the time the patient was severaly brain damaged. They would be crippled, or a drooling zombie, or would die.

It may not have been labotomies. There were all kinds of weird experiments done on patients back in the days when there were no laws for a patient dying through a doctors experiements.

makes you want to run out and get mental help